How to link text in a TextView to open web URL

Question

I've spent over an hour looking at plenty of examples and none of it actually works for setting text in a TextView to link to a web URL.

Example code!

text8 = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.textView4);
text8.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());

Strings.xml

 <string name="urltext"><a href="http://www.google.com">Google</a></string>

main.xml

 <TextView
        android:id="@+id/textView4"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:autoLink="web"
        android:linksClickable="true"
        android:text="@string/urltext"
        android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceMedium" />

Currently this code display the text as "Google" however its not hyperlinked and nothing happens upon clicking.

AFAIK, `` tags are not supported in string resources, unless wrapped in `CDATA`. — CommonsWare, Jul 27 '13 at 22:57
have you tried this http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2734270/how-do-i-make-links-in-a-textview-clickable ? — Desert, Jul 27 '13 at 23:00
@user1873880 I've tried that and it seems to not work as well. Unless there is something im missing — Jaison Brooks, Jul 27 '13 at 23:02
@JaisonBrooks Looking at the answers in the link that user1873880 posted, I think perhaps you need to remove some of those link properties you have set (like autoLink and linksClickable). — James Holderness, Jul 27 '13 at 23:09
@JamesHolderness Thanks, I've actually solved the problem with one of the answers on that post — Jaison Brooks, Jul 27 '13 at 23:18

score 8 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:54

I solved my problem simply by the following code.

Kept HTML-like string:

 <string name="urltext"><a href="https://www.google.com/">Google</a></string>

Made layout with NO link-specific configuration at all:

 <TextView
    android:id="@+id/link"
    android:text="@string/urltext" />`

Added the MovementMethod to the TextView:

 mLink = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.link);
 if (mLink != null) {
   mLink.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());
 }

Now it allows me to click the hyperlinked text "Google" and now opens web browser.

This code was from vizZ answer at the following linked Question

A lot of others answers suggest using `Html.fromHtml` - when I removed it, the link worked! Thanks! — Luke Needham, Jun 17 '19 at 08:42

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 17 '14 at 21:35

TextView text=(TextView) findViewById(R.id.text);   

    String value = "<html> click to go <font color=#757b86><b><a href=\"http://www.google.com\">google</a></b></font> </html>";
Spannable spannedText = (Spannable)
                Html.fromHtml(value);
text.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());

Spannable processedText = removeUnderlines(spannedText);
        text.setText(processedText);

here is your removeUnderlines()

public static Spannable removeUnderlines(Spannable p_Text) {  
               URLSpan[] spans = p_Text.getSpans(0, p_Text.length(), URLSpan.class);  
               for (URLSpan span : spans) {  
                    int start = p_Text.getSpanStart(span);  
                    int end = p_Text.getSpanEnd(span);  
                    p_Text.removeSpan(span);  
                    span = new URLSpanNoUnderline(span.getURL());  
                    p_Text.setSpan(span, start, end, 0);  
               }  
               return p_Text;  
          }

also create class URLSpanNoUnderline.java

import co.questapp.quest.R;
import android.text.TextPaint;
import android.text.style.URLSpan;

public class URLSpanNoUnderline extends URLSpan {
    public URLSpanNoUnderline(String p_Url) {
        super(p_Url);
    }

    public void updateDrawState(TextPaint p_DrawState) {
        super.updateDrawState(p_DrawState);
        p_DrawState.setUnderlineText(false);
        p_DrawState.setColor(R.color.info_text_color);
    }
}

using this line you can also change the color of that text p_DrawState.setColor(R.color.info_text_color);

score -1 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 17 '15 at 11:19

-1

Add CDATA to your string resource

Strings.xml

<string name="urltext"><![CDATA[<a href=\"http://www.google.com\">Google</a>]]></string>

answered Feb 17 '15 at 11:19

Akexorcist

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How to link text in a TextView to open web URL

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